The Shock Absorber

Thinking and doing church a little differently...

The Shock Absorber is a christianity podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The Shock Absorber, a christianity show with 0 episodes published.

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  Episode #97

  New wine, old wineskins: How movements change everything

  Aug 18, 202643 minS8

  Total Football didn't come from nowhere. It came from a culture in revolt: Dutch teenagers with nowhere to go, smoke bombs at a royal wedding, a movement that flipped one of the most conservative societies in Europe in under two years. And it has more to say about how the church adapts to cultural change than you might expect. Joel, Stu and Tim are back after a break, and Stu is bringing the Industrial Revolution, the Sunday School movement, Robert Raikes, Mark Senter's 50-year cycles of youth ministry, the Youth Ministry Wars of the 90s, and Jesus's own wineskins metaphor to bear on a single question: what happens when institutions can't keep up with culture? The answer, historically, is always a movement. The question is whether the church is ready to recognise one when it sees it. This is part one of a multi-episode conversation. Discussed in this episode It Was What it Was podcast Provo Movement Mark Senter - The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry Mark Senter - Four Views of Youth Ministry Ken Moser - No Guts No Glory Jim Rayburn - Young Life history Albert Camus - The Fall Timestamps 00:00 Welcome back — Week Away, David Jensen's talks and Tim's total football rabbit hole 01:30 Total Football — what it is, where it came from and why it matters 05:00 The Provo movement — Dutch anarchists, smoke bombs and a cultural revolution 08:30 From pipe smokers to Amsterdam — how culture flips faster than institutions 10:00 Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and the lineage of total football 13:00 The connection — what football movements have to do with church movements 14:00 The agrarian world before the Industrial Revolution — villages, stability and transmitted faith 17:00 The seismic shift — steam engines, mass migration and the collapse of the parish system 19:00 The Luddites — proto-feminism and the first movement against technology 20:30 Oliver Twist, crime, convicts and how the Industrial Revolution populated Australia 22:00 The church's failure to adapt — and Robert Raikes' accidental movement 25:00 The Sunday School spreads — Thomas Hassall in Parramatta and two peoples together 27:00 Max Weber, charismatic leaders and the sociology of movements 29:00 Jesus's wineskins metaphor as movement theory 30:00 Mark Senter's 50-year cycles — Sunday School to YMCA to Young Life to the 90s 33:00 The Youth Ministry Wars — funnel model vs discipleship model in Sydney 36:00 Soul Revival falls into something different — without knowing the war was happening 39:00 YouthWorks College and the homogenisation of the Sydney model 41:00 Preview — next episode: institutionalising relationships and the next cycle Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #96

  From Consumer to Contributor — What a third place church actually asks

  Jun 30, 202638 minS8

  Most people experience church the way they experience a concert. Someone produces the event. You turn up, participate passively, evaluate the quality, go home. French sociologist Henri Lefebvre has a word for that kind of space: dominated. And it explains more about why people struggle to belong at church. Joel and Tim close out the third place conversation, by working through the consumer vs contributor tension, Lefebvre's dominated vs appropriated space framework, and what it actually takes to shift someone's perception of church from event to community. Plus two practical measures of whether it's working, time spent and meaningful service, and why there's a difference between grudgingly turning sausages at the soccer club canteen and genuinely co-creating the culture of your church. Also: Germany qualifying for the knockout rounds, a 10-year-old girl shaping the kids ministry program at Miranda, and why Stu spends a significant amount of his time as a senior pastor convincing Christians to go to church. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome — Our House, Germany through to the knockouts and a short episode before kickoff 03:00 The unresolved tension from last week — consumer vs contributor in a third place 04:00 Why we want irregulars to become regulars — the theology underneath 07:00 Regulars as culture generators — what the sociology says 09:00 Is the tension caused by the homogeneous unit principle hangover? 10:00 Lefebvre's framework — dominated spaces vs appropriated spaces 13:00 Why church gatherings fit the dominated space model 15:00 The theological tension — scripture still has authority, leadership still matters 18:00 How the seeker sensitive model seeped into the broader evangelical imagination 21:00 What to measure — bums on seats and money on the plate vs co-contribution 23:00 Two better measures — time spent and meaningful service 24:00 The sausage-turning distinction — roster obligation vs joyful co-contribution 27:00 How do you help people make the shift? Lefebvre's tension named 31:00 Inviting people to shape the culture — the 10-year-old at Miranda 35:00 Institutionalising friendship — the theological framework underneath 37:00 Wrapping up — and why Stu spends time convincing Christians to go to church Discussed on this episode Henri Lefebvre - dominated vs appropriated spaces Joseph Hellerman - When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus' Vision for Authentic Christian Community Tim Beilharz - Understanding How Faith Grows Ray Oldenburg - The Great Good Place Saddleback concentric circles model Willow Creek seeker sensitive model Donald McGavran's Homogeneous unit principle Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #95

  ?

  Jun 25, 202650 minS8

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  Episode #94

  Subversive Spaces - Why the church needs more than a service

  Jun 23, 202651 minS8

  What if the most countercultural thing a church could do was have a lounge? Joel, Stu and Tim are into theme four of Stu's PhD - alternative Christian shared spaces that embed belonging. Stu traces the intellectual journey from new social movement theory through Melucci's subversive spaces to Oldenburg's third place theory, and explains why a barber shop in New York where a Mercedes driver and a homeless person sit together laughing about the Knicks was exactly the image he needed for what Soul Revival was trying to build. The conversation covers why Christian third places are harder to create than secular ones, why food slows everything down in the right way, why architecture says more about what you expect people to do than any welcome strategy, and why the biggest challenge isn't creating a third place, it's convincing people that church can be one. Also: Mary the Tasmanian devil's 14-day escape from a Gold Coast wildlife park, Sproul Hall at Berkeley, the feminist movement that started because someone asked the women to make coffee, and why Stu's original garage felt like Sproul Hall. Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #93

  Friendship is an ecclesial category

  Jun 16, 202653 minS8

  Jesus didn't call his disciples servants. He called them friends. And Stu thinks that matters more for how we do church than most ecclesiology conversations acknowledge. Joel, Stu and Tim are working through the emerging themes of Stu's PhD — and theme three is an ecclesiology of friendship and intergenerational family. Why friendship is a legitimate theological category, not just a social preference. Why industrialised schooling has trained us to only be friends with people our age, and what we lose when church reproduces that model. Why young people being listened to isn't a nicety but a theological conviction. And why a community built on friendship with Jesus produces friendships that wouldn't otherwise exist. Plus: the Luddites, a 1958 newspaper article about surfers at Cronulla, e-bikes doing monos, and Jesus beads in the 90s. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome: Sky Guide and the World Cup 06:00 PhD recap: themes one and two 07:30 Theme three: ecclesiology of friendship and intergenerational family 11:00 The peer group balance: too large and you never grow beyond it, too small and there's loneliness 13:30 Friendship as an ecclesial category 15:00 The metaphors of church: body, family, royal priesthood, and friends 17:30 Why friendship was a powerful category in the 90s: Friends, Seinfeld and Cheers 20:00 The Good Samaritan and who my neighbour is: church as one big friendship group 22:00 The intergenerational revolution: what if Jesus is the basis of friendship, not special interests? 26:00 Industrialised schooling and why friendship defaults to same-age 32:00 Why young people being listened to was disorienting and powerful 38:00 The youth council, the moderating voice and the shock absorber in practice 44:00 E-bikes, surfboards and seeing youth culture with curiosity rather than fear 48:00 Jesus beads, organic evangelism and what happens when young people have voice 51:00 Preview of theme four and the limitation of the Shock Absorber when it institutionalises Discussed on this episode Mark Senter III: When God Shows Up Mark Senter III: Four Views of Youth Ministry Lev Vygotsky: Zone of proximal development John Creswell: Qualitative research methodology James Jasper: Emotional dimensions of social movements Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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